In Poe’s story the “The Pit and the Pendulum” he distinctively uses symbolism, repetition, mood and diction to tell a tale of hope over circumstance to make this story come to life for the reader. Unlike the hypersensitive characters from other stories, such as the narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart,” this narrator claims to lose the capacity of sensation during the swoon upon receiving his death sentence that opens the story. This story is different from Poe’s other works such as this narrator remains hopeful in his emotional state; he is able to describe his surroundings while also portraying his emotional chaos. We the readers are not given specific circumstances of his arrest, nor are we given any evidence for his innocence. Although, even without those details he gives us a famous suspense story that is violent and graphic yet hopeful and ethically allusive. The stories intentions aim at not only the physical pain of death, but the realization that a victim has no choice but to die. Whether the narrator chooses to jump into the pit or get separated by the pendulum, he faces an indistinguishable conclusion —death. This may not be the path any of us want to take in our life time, but in the end, we have no choice. This story strives to display his lack of choice while displaying hope when he does what some would call nearly impossible; he does not submit to the swooning and recruits his sensible abilities. When he awakes from his swoon, he faces complete darkness. This story has plenty of symbolism throughout the story such as the pit that represents the pit of hell or the pendulum which like a clock pendulum swinging back and forth represents time. The rats viewed normally as unwanted creatures, represent a second chance as they chew through his bindings freeing him to escape from the pendulum. General LaSalle is a symbol that resembles a Christ-like figure who overtakes the corruptness of the church and is the voice of reason. The narrator used something...

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...On the surface, Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum” relates the story of a man tortured by the Spanish Inquisition. The unknown narrator loses all consciousness when he finds out that he is to be sentenced to death. When he awakes to darkness confusion overwhelms him for he does not know what is to happen to him. After passing out several more times he starts searching his prison cell in the darkness and soon discovers that there is a deep circular...

...Analysis
One notable aspect of Edgar Allan Poe's prose is his consistent use of detailed description, and he uses this tendency to great effect in his short story "The Pit and the Pendulum." The aim of the story is very simply to create a dark atmosphere of foreboding and anticipatory horror, and Poe achieves this by minutely tracking the path of the unnamed narrator's thoughts and experiences. Although the narrator is, like most of Poe's...

...The Pit and the Pendulum" Symbolism: Although the events in the story create suspense and interest, its the story's deeper meaning that makes it so good. An analysis of the pit (death or hell), the scythe/pendulum (time and death), and the angelic forms of the Inquisitorial tribune (angels of death) are three of many symbols in the novel.
Stripped of extraneous detail, the story focuses on what horror truly is: not the physical pain of...

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The Pit and the Pendulum
There are some stories, where the objects that are described or portrayed play a more important part of the story than what we believed. In The Pit and the Pendulum, a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe there is certain symbolism that adds meaning to the story. The narrator is telling the story from a dungeon in Toledo, Spain as a prisoner during the Spanish Inquisition. In the story, there...

...Edgar Allen Poe’s short story, “The Pit and the Pendulum” is told from a first person point of view. The narrator, who has been imprisoned and sentenced to death, remains nameless and discovers that he is being held in a small enclosed prison cell where “the blackness of darkness supervened...”. The perspective of the narrator helps to develop a sense of terror in the reader because it forces the narrator to blindly fill his confinement with his greatest fears,...

...The short story The Pit and the Pendulum is centered on the idea of fear. Poe sets the atmosphere of terror towards the reader from the very beginning of the story. By informing the reader that the setting takes place in the time of the Inquisition, many things can be foreshadowed about the story. The mood of terror is maintained by describing the area in which the main character is trapped. The narrator, who is also the main character, concludes that...

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Light of Darkness
In the story, "The Pit and the Pendulum", written by the infamous Edgar Allen Poe, written in 1843, places a man during the time of the Inquisition who is incarnated. Beginning the story, this man, who remains unnamed, receives a death sentence and immediately faints. Upon waking he finds himself in a completely dark room. Scared that he is inside a tomb, he moves around to reinsure himself. Upon exploring this...